Talk:The Trouble with Edward (episode)
Commercial So how are we treating the commercial? From a production point of view it was clearly meant to be humorous for our benefit and not a part of the show(which is why it was after the credits which typically mark the end of an episode) but I also know that we generally treat anything on screen as in-universe content. 31dot (talk) 10:47, October 11, 2019 (UTC) :It could even be a bit of in-universe satire. --LauraCC (talk) 15:29, October 11, 2019 (UTC) That's an interesting thought. 31dot (talk) 16:45, October 11, 2019 (UTC) ::Interesting, but unsupported, I fear. The VHS-like presentation was clearly aimed at an audience that would remember TV commercials from the 1980s; that is, us, the real-world viewers, not hypothetical 23rd-century viewers within the Star Trek universe. ::I know that the rule here has always been that if it’s on TV or film (and made by the folks who have the appropriate rights), it counts. Over at the Doctor Who wiki, which is far more inclusive when it comes to stories from other media, we have had to create rules about valid sources to deal with problems like this. One of the rules is that intentional parodies, like The Curse of Fatal Death, don’t count, even when they’re made by the people who have the rights to make Doctor Who. For example, the (4-part) Doctor Who serial Earthshock ended with the death of the (relatively unpopular) character Adric. On the DVD release, there was a clay-animated parody called "Earthshock: Part Five," which depicted Adric as having survived, only to be eaten by a dinosaur. TARDIS wiki’s rules allow us to have a page on that parody video, but not to include information from it in the in-universe parts of articles. So it’s mentioned in the article on Earthshock, but not in the article on Adric. ::I suggest that we adopt a similar rule, excepting obvious parodies from our in-universe material. We already do this after a fashion with one bit that was made by Paramount: the comedy skit with Kate Mulgrew and the cast of Frasier in Star Trek: 30 Years and Beyond, which we don’t mention in Kathryn Janeway. Similarly, I suggest that we confine mention of the "commercial" and its contents to "The Trouble with Edward", but not allow it to be mentioned on in-universe pages like tribble or replicator. —Josiah Rowe (talk) 17:42, October 11, 2019 (UTC) :::The commercial can be mentioned on the page for tribbles without being granted "canon" status, such as in a note describing the commercial. The question is whether Memory Alpha wants to be comprehensive or not. I understand the conceit of MA is that is an actual databank in the Star Trek universe. But in the real world, Star Trek is a TV show and so a reference about the TV show should cover the actual show. Anyway, I added a summary of the scene to this episode's page but I haven't referenced it elsewhere (and don't have immediate plans to do so).--Cliffy7373 (talk) 17:56, October 11, 2019 (UTC) ::::I don't see a reason here to rewrite years of policy when none of this is more ridiculous than a balloon starship. A single line referencing this on the relevant pages isn't going to break anything beyond that we don't really know who made this or when, though replicators are a decisively 24th century technology for Starfleet. It's not much of a stretch to imagine a young Tom Paris putting this together while learning about this incident at the Academy, and that ticks all the 20th/21st century reference boxes as well. That's literally just one of hundreds of rationales we are not required to provide by simply following policy and reporting what was part of the episode. ::::That said, we can try to write something that will allow this to be neatly not included while everything else is, but I can guarantee you it will bite you in the ass the next time. - 04:40, October 12, 2019 (UTC) I think how was written could be a good model to follow. 31dot (talk) 10:54, October 12, 2019 (UTC) ::I guess that works, as long as we note the context and don’t naively take it as a literal presentation. (That is, we shouldn’t assume that “Tribbles” cereal was actually sold or advertised to children.) —Josiah Rowe (talk) 14:21, October 12, 2019 (UTC) Agreed. 31dot (talk) 16:59, October 12, 2019 (UTC) ::::We clearly can't say it was sold or advertised to children, just that an advertisement exists. Per policy, we tend to assume everything we see is "real", or real enough depending on the context, but we can write the article to suggest that it might not be. For example, all of the references to this could start with "according to a commercial..." since that is both a fact and "...does not promote any particular view or critical judgment..." of the contents of the episode. I'm fine with the Ravenous being fictional, and breakfast not being a stardate, based on the context and presentation, but we should assume this cereal did exist, at least according to the commercial. - 17:17, October 12, 2019 (UTC) ::According to the commercial being the key phrase. We must maintain that caveat, and allow the reader to decide whether the commercial is a reliable witness to the "reality" of the Star Trek universe. As you say, the context matters. —Josiah Rowe (talk) 01:47, October 13, 2019 (UTC) :::::On a related note to all this, wouldn't it make sense to cite stuff from this scene as ( , post-credits scene). It is an unusual and easy to overlook format, after all, and we already use a few different citation specifiers, for example ( , opening credits). Or am I overthinking this? -- Capricorn (talk) 20:51, October 15, 2019 (UTC) ::::I insist we use the link " " for this. ::::It really is only helpful if we have a redirect to the section on the episode page, so we can then find these. I expect there to be more post-credits scenes going forward, which is another reason to use something a bit different for this right away, so we can also have an article on format. If this does happen, we may have to create a more standardize format for the links. ::::Also, those opening credits notes should be converted to links to the Star Trek: Enterprise opening title sequences page. - 21:04, October 15, 2019 (UTC) :::::There never was a second bonus scene, so I'm not exactly counting on more behind credits scenes either. (I've found that not having any hopes or expectations is the best way to approach Discovery) Anyway, based on what you said I'm inclined to proceed with this idea, linking the references back to the relevant background section here. Except, were you serious about using credit cookie? That one feels a bit much to me. -- Capricorn (talk) 08:01, October 22, 2019 (UTC) ::::There never really was a "bonus scene" in the first place, since it was always just a deleted scene shown at a convention. Good on the marketing department and all for that, but this at least is part of the episode as broadcasted. I imagine that one of the animated series might use the format again at least, since it's good for comedy and I expect those shows to have jokes. I'm also 101% serious about using "credit cookie", since the redirects are more or less invisible and that name is just as ridiculous as a meat cereal made from tribbles. - 20:01, October 22, 2019 (UTC) :::::101%? Well, I can't compete with that math... -- Capricorn (talk) 06:26, October 23, 2019 (UTC) Easter Egg A113 Maybe something to mention in the background portion of this episode - In the post-credits commercial, we see A-113 on a label for a food slot. This is an Easter Egg and in-joke reference to a room at the California Institute of Arts, where students were trained to be graphic designers and character animators. -- 14:50, October 16, 2019 (UTC) :That's absolutely worth mentioning. I'll take care of it. -- Capricorn (talk) 08:01, October 22, 2019 (UTC) Date On pages like Lynne Lucero and Edward Larkin, there’s been a sort of slow-motion edit war about the date for the events of this episode. As far as I can tell, it could be set anywhere during Pike's command of the Enterprise, which we date as 2250 to 2265. So I’ve been dating events from this episode as "2250s or early 2260s". But those dates have been "fixed" now a couple of times. Since it affects multiple pages, I figured this might be a good place to clear up any confusion. Is there a reference I missed that sets this definitively in the 2250s? I do see that saying "2250s or early 2260s" messes up the formatting in some templates (for example, the "datestatus" field in ). But that's a technical problem that I assume could be fixed, not a reason to show an inaccurate date. Am I missing something? —Josiah Rowe (talk) 16:57, October 17, 2019 (UTC) :No date was stated outright, but we do have some information that could narrow it down further than just Pike's command of the Enterprise. Lucero is the ship's science officer and is leaving, and since she is a new character and has never been mentioned or seen before, we can guess that Spock replaced her since he is the ship's science officer when we see him. That works rather nicely with the previous episode as well, since it answers the unasked question of who Spock was replacing, but more info points to a later date than 2254. The Cabot is also using the "new" uniforms like Enterprise. This supports the late 2250s through the early 2260s since Discovery was new in the mid-2250s with the "old" uniforms and the "new new" uniforms from TOS should show up around 2265. We can also assume this happened after the war since Enterprise is around Klingon space and Starfleet Command is worried about the Klingons when before the war they hadn't heard much out of them in a century. That would also explain why younger officers are being promoted, since it's faster to build new ships that make experienced officers. When there are two pages that could be correct with the date, I tend to go with the first option since we can add notes here and to the 2250s page about the dating window extending into the next decade. Notes do not need to be added to every page with this info, since we can either avoid dating stuff or just point back here. :That said, I'm OK with things being "wrong" while the season is airing, since we don't have all the info yet and one of the other episodes may date this, or a production staffer may just give a date for this in an interview and solve our problem. Also, see here for a similar discussion about the last episode and marking these "soft" dates differently, in case anyone didn't see the last few posts there. - 19:55, October 17, 2019 (UTC) Hmm... the contextual bit about being after the Klingon war is persuasive, but I’m not sure we can deduce anything from the uniforms, especially since we saw the "new" uniforms circa 2254 in . Similarly, "science officer" doesn’t always mean "chief science officer"; do we even know whether Spock was the chief science officer in "The Cage"? Pike refers to Lucero as "our young science officer," which might or might not mean she was chief science officer. Either way, although Spock certainly could have replaced Lucero, it’s just as possible that they served together, or (ignoring the evidence about the Klingons) that there was a gap between their times serving on the Enterprise. I suppose I hadn’t been thinking of these three Pike-era Short Treks as a "season" in which one episode might provide further detail about another. The first four Short Treks were all pretty stand-alone. That said, it's certainly possible that more information may be revealed or discovered. I see the template you made, but I’m not quite sure how to use it (either in general, or in this specific case). I still feel that "2250s to early 2260s" is all we can definitively say; I’m just not sure of the best way to format it. —Josiah Rowe (talk) 22:31, October 17, 2019 (UTC) ::The post-Klingon war argument isn't persuasive to me. We know for a fact that there was some interaction between Klingons and the Federation between 2223 and the battle of the Binaries, and of course a mission close to the Klingon border might be one that leads to some of that stuff. And that Spock might have replaced Lucero occured to me too, but it's more of a nice theory then a proven fact. -- Capricorn (talk) 08:01, October 22, 2019 (UTC) Meta references Do we need articles on these meta references that are currently listed? I can't see what that would add that would be useful. -- Capricorn (talk) 09:06, October 22, 2019 (UTC) :I don't know that we do, really. I moved them out of the regular references section because they *are* meta, but I think the mention of "Johnny Appleseed" and Bing Crosby in the Production notes section is all we really need. -- Renegade54 (talk) 14:25, October 22, 2019 (UTC) ::They are part of the episode, but are only for the audience, so we should have real world articles on them, just like we mention the "Kronos" location ID in at Qo'noS. Beyond the scrolling text opening in and the aforementioned location IDs, I don't know of any other "meta" stuff appearing in episodes or films, excepting the original scores of course. This might be another first. - 20:17, October 22, 2019 (UTC) :::I'd say Where My Heart Will Take Me is comparable. JagoAndLitefoot (talk) 22:23, October 22, 2019 (UTC) I'm not saying those terms appearing shouldn't be mentioned where relevant, but what specifically is the added value to our reader in there being an article on for example "apple tree" over just noting the song's lyrics at Johnny Appleseed? Everyone already knows what an apple tree is, and apple trees are not actually part of the Star Trek universe. You might as well have articles on contemporary companies, celebrities, events, etc briefly mentioned in some actor's anecdote on After Trek or The Ready Room, but those references have no value to a Star Trek encyclopedia. And it's different from things like the Caretaker text too, I think: stuff like that might be in a weird format, but it's still part of the in-universe story. If that text had for mentioned that Kim had arrived on the ship from Bolarus, then that would be part of his backstory. Whereas again, apple trees are not part of the universe just because they appear in a song played over a scene. -- Capricorn (talk) 06:26, October 23, 2019 (UTC) :Agreed. If it had been mentioned in source music (i.e. a song playing in-universe), then it should be referenced. As meta info, I think a real-world reference to the song and the lyrics of the song itself should suffice. -- Renegade54 (talk) 13:50, October 23, 2019 (UTC) ::Assuming these meta references will only continue, it might be a good idea to start planning for a "meta Trek" category to group some of these together. The Kronos redirect, and presumably redirects for the red links currently in the meta references already could added. Pages that already exist would be fine with a bg note, but we could create something similar to the retconned material in background category to group those in as well. - 16:15, October 25, 2019 (UTC)